


Intervention: Cabin Style

by K9Lasko



Category: NCIS
Genre: Episode: s12e15 Cabin Fever, Friendship, Future Fic, Gibbs' Cabin, M/M, Marshmallows, Nature is awesome, Not Canon Compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-23
Updated: 2017-07-23
Packaged: 2018-12-05 16:33:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11581920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/K9Lasko/pseuds/K9Lasko
Summary: Emily is getting married; Tobias isn’t handling it well. Gibbs coaxes him back toward reason, all the while realizing he should probably be spending some time fixing his own problems. Or maybe that's a suggestion from Tobias...Pretty much just a fluffy yet sorta-angsty introspective piece.





	Intervention: Cabin Style

**Author's Note:**

> Title: “Intervention: Cabin Style”  
> Rating: FR13  
> Genre: Drama (mostly), Humor (a little), Angst (but not too much)  
> Pairings: Fornell & Gibbs friendship; Gibbs/Tony established relationship  
> Timeframe: A few years post-Season 12 (but Tali doesn’t exist, neither does Season 13 or 14, Tony is still working, Gibbs is finally retired.) Some Season 12 spoilers, “Cabin Fever” in particular. But really, this is very much alternate reality, and I’ve probably bungled it all badly.
> 
> This story was written as part of the NFA White Elephant Exchange for Sherry (smackalicious.) The prompt was to include a few quotes she picked out from other shows.

Gibbs grabs a four-pack of butane lighters before continuing down the aisle. He tosses them in his cart, on top of the jumbo-sized bag of charcoal, a large tarp, several packages of batteries, and a few common canned goods. 

 

He passes by the matches, the flashlights and battery-powered lanterns, and a Fourth of July themed display of charcoal briquets and long-handled marshmallow skewers and hickory chips for smoking. ‘Celebrate with family’ the display reads — everything in obnoxious red, white, blue — and there’s a graphic of two smiling children, a boy and a girl, one holding a sparkler, the other a miniature flag, and the scene is so happy and foreign that it makes Gibbs walk faster just to put it behind him.

 

His cell phone rings and he stops to fumble around for it. The ringtone is generic, still set on default — it’s either an unknown caller or a contact Tony hadn’t gotten around to assigning a special ringtone for. It takes him a moment to flip the phone open; he moves aside with a slight nod at a woman pushing her own cart, three kids in tow.

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Uncle Gibbs? It’s Emily.”

 

There’s an awkward silence after that filled only by the dated pop music playing overhead and the ding before a generic, on-repeat intercom announcement: _Attention_ _Food Lion shoppers, are you ready for your holiday weekend?_  

 

Gibbs shifts his weight and asks, finally, “Any news?”

 

“Haven’t you heard from Tony?” she asks.

 

No, he hasn’t, and he probably won’t for a while.

 

“Dad’s at the cabin. Your cabin,” she clarifies, as if there could be confusion about which cabin her father had chosen to hole up in.

 

Gibbs starts to push the cart towards the check out kiosks. “Thought as much.”

 

There’s another bout of silence. Emily starts to say, voice distant and tinny through the cell phone, “He’s shaved his head again. I didn’t want to ask, but—“

 

“You don’t ever have to ask, Em,” he interrupts. The lines are long at the check-outs, and right when he finds the one that looks like the fastest option, he remembers he forgot something. He turns around and tries to guess which aisles might house the marshmallows and graham crackers. “Look, I’m heading up there after I finish some things here in town.” Gibbs spots the marshmallows and debates over the regular sized or the super jumbo camp-fire sized. He grabs both bags. Two of each. He’s over-compensating, he knows.

 

“Thank you, Uncle Gibbs. I just didn’t— I thought he’d be okay with this and—“

 

“Not your fault. I’ll sort him out. You just go and enjoy yourselves.”

 

 

**

 

 

At 10 a.m. the day is already heavy and hot, and there are thunderheads gathering upwards to the west.

 

Gibbs guides the truck off the state highway and onto a county road with a center line faded from the elements and a patchwork of filled-in potholes. Farm fields border each side, the corn a little more than a foot high. Beyond the corn, there are dairy cattle, and beyond that, nothing. 

 

After a few miles, he turns onto another county road, then immediately onto yet another road. This one winds its way north, and the fields gradually phase into woodland. Less maintained, the road has no center line and no shoulder; the edges of it crumble into the ditches that line each side. There are no homes or other development on this stretch, just miles and miles of forest as the road gains altitude.

 

This is also where cell reception is lost; the nearest cell tower has been knocked out by a violent storm and no one has felt arsed enough to repair it. There are barely any full-time residents on this side of the mountain, and those that do live here aren’t tethered to cell phones.

 

The final turn is onto a forest service road. This road is paved with gravel that is moderately washed out by the frequent storms. After the second switchback, the driveway comes into view. No mailbox, no property marker, just two lines of gravel heading into thick woods.

 

Gibbs sees the back of Tobias Fornell’s car before he sees the cabin. He pulls the truck up alongside it, cranks on the e-brake and shifts into park.

 

“How’d you know I was here!” Tobias shouts from the cabin’s front steps, where he sits with his loyal companion — one of Gibbs’ bottles of Wild Turkey. He’s dressed for a day in the woods, apparently: faded blue jeans, white t-shirt, an unbuttoned button-up, and hiking boots that look new and unused. He’s got a scowl on his face that could match Gibbs’ standard-issue facial expression — but Gibbs for once isn’t scowling. Rather, he smiles — rueful and affectionate.

 

“You’re driving a government issued vehicle,” Gibbs says. He’s already pulling supplies out of the bed of the truck. “Tony had McGee track you down. Or rather, your daughter had Tony have McGee track you down. Following?”

 

“Of course he’s on your side,” says Tobias darkly. “DiNozzo.”

 

“I think he’s more afraid of your daughter,” says Gibbs. He steps over Tobias and heads inside.

 

“Fine.” Tobias pours himself another inch and takes a swig. “Then what took you so long to get here!”

 

Gibbs steps over him again. “You gonna help or are you gonna sit on your ass all day feeling sorry for yourself?”

 

“You don’t even know the worst of it.”

 

“That so.” Gibbs pauses and slowly sits down next to him. “You sharing?” he asks, but he doesn’t wait for an answer; he just grabs the bottle and pulls in a mouthful. He doesn’t even wince.

 

“You’ve kept this place nice. I noticed,” Tobias says.

 

“Making it out here more often. Of course you’re welcome to it, whenever.”

 

The wry humor is lost on Fornell. “Retirement treating you well, then. More time to do…” he waves a hand around with a theatrical flourish.

 

“I didn’t retire, Tobias. I just… aged out of working for money.”

 

“That’s one way to put it.” He drains the glass. “How often does Tony come up with you?”

 

“Not often. This weekend he will.” Gibbs doesn’t look Tobias in the eye as he says it.

 

“How’s that going?” Tobias seems genuinely interested.

 

Gibbs gives him a wary look, but he decides to answer with truth. “Ups. Downs.” 

 

Tobias is curious, but before he can open his mouth again, Gibbs adds, “Not his fault.”

 

“You miss the job, and he’s still in it. I can feel the tension.”

 

“You’re observant,” says Gibbs, “for a drunk.”

 

“It’s the job. It’s always the job.” That’s the only explanation, and it spurs Tobias to pour himself another glass. “Sucks the life right out of you.”

 

“No.” Gibbs removes the glass from Tobias’ hand and stands up. “You can make yourself useful.” He heads for the truck to grab the last of the gear. “C’mon. Better find your giddy-up and go. Busy weekend ahead.”

 

 

**

 

 

Night comes slowly, and with it come the fireflies. The cabin backs up to a lake which is fed by a small creek; the twinkling of the fireflies keeps to the shoreline, bullfrogs call out from the cattails, and in some nearby tree, a barred owl mimics in soft hoots, _“Who cooks for you. Who cooks for you all.”_

 

Moonlight catches on the gently moving water, though for the most part, the lake is still. The woods lives and breathes around the cabin.

 

Gibbs grills steaks on an open flame, and Tobias is as impressed by that as he always is. They heat up a can of green beans to go along with it, only at the insistence of Tobias who states that man cannot live on red meat alone if he intends to make it past age sixty.

 

There is scientific proof, he asserts.

 

They talk very little, even though they are both steadily making their way through the bottle of bourbon. Surprisingly, it is Gibbs who’s first to break the silence.

 

“Emily,” he starts. “She seems to think you’re putting on a repeat performance of what happened after Diane. And yeah, the similarities are there—“

 

“Except this time I can’t gun down Emily’s fiancé to assuage my grief,” Tobias deadpans.

 

Gibbs actually laughs at that. It’s a sharp, barking sound. A dark kind of laughter. 

 

If only this situation could be as simple as that. This time, there is no enemy to eliminate, no revenge to be sought. This is just life: Tobias’ daughter, who’s all grown up now and ready to fly off on her own.

 

“No. I’d say not.” Gibbs’ laughter ends in more silence. He gives his friend a sober look, one that’s also laced with fondness rarely seen from Gibbs — fondness reserved for only the closest of friends. “You knew it was bound to happen.”

 

“But not so _soon_ ,” Tobias insists.

 

“She’s twenty-three, Tobias, and she’s been with that guy for five years. He’s a good man. I’ve done the legwork on him, as have you. She’s getting married, and that’s the end of it. She’s moving across the country with him, and there’s nothing you can do about that, either. She knows what she wants. She’s smart. You and Diane raised her right.”

 

“I don’t have to like it,” Tobias interjects, moody and a fair bit drunk.

 

“I don’t suppose you do.” Gibbs is frowning now, because if there’s anybody who should be playing family counselor, it’s definitely _not_ him. 

 

He briefly wishes for Tony to be here — Tony always knows what to say during any situation, even if it’s out of his depth — but Tony isn’t here, and Tony also isn’t one of Fornell’s closest friends. (Gibbs also remembers the last conversation he had with Tony, back at the house. Except it wasn’t a conversation; it was a full-blown fight, and not just the “loud talking” kind of fight. It involved a lot of words from Tony and far too little from Gibbs and it ended with a colorfully angry and reasonably succinct, “Go fuck yourself!”

 

Gibbs had gotten the message, loud and clear.

 

Gibbs doesn’t know where to put Tony’s emotion half the time, so he ends up misplacing it somewhere — hiding from it, ignoring it — even when he doesn’t mean to. He already knows that’s the catch, the common theme of every one of his relationships. When he doesn’t simply drive them away, he drives them to violence.)

 

“And she just springs it on me,” Tobias is still going on and on, “as if it’s some sort of surprise, a wonderful surprise.”

 

“It is wonderful,” says Gibbs. “Be happy for her. She’s your daughter. This is a big transition.”

 

“I’m not ready for it. He’s not the right one for her.”

 

Gibbs has apparently heard enough, because he slams the glass down on the makeshift outdoor wooden table and exclaims, “It doesn’t matter if you’re ready or not, and last I knew, it’s not you who’s getting married. I can’t speak from experience—” he almost hiccups over this sentence, but he powers through, “-but if Kelly was in Em’s place, and if I was in yours, hell no, I wouldn’t be ready either. But it’s not about you; it’s about her. _So what_ if she wants to marry this guy? _So what_ if she wants to experience life somewhere else? That’s her decision, not yours. She’s already got a great job lined up out there. What more are you asking for? 

 

She’s not a little girl anymore, Tobias, and yet you’re falling to pieces over the fact that she grew up and somehow you got left behind. Here you are at my cabin drinking all my booze and crashing my holiday weekend, and here I am getting worried phone calls from your daughter about how much she’s disappointed her father and asking if I can fix it. Well, bub, I think you’ve got to suck it up and deal with it. Your daughter can’t fix your problems. Hell, _I_ can’t fix your problems. But _you_ can.” At the end, Gibbs tags on, “You’re acting ridiculous; Diane woulda told you so at the start.”

 

Tobias stares at Gibbs. The nocturnal crickets in the background are reaching a dramatic crescendo. The bullfrog orchestra switches to a different cadence. The owl hoots in perfect time. 

 

“What?” asks Gibbs, testily. 

 

“What you just said,” says Tobias. “It was… oddly… helpful.”

 

Meanwhile, the fire crackles as it continues to burn down into a glowing red bed of coals.

 

“I mean,” Tobias goes on, “that was really… good. I, um— Thank you. You always… know what to say, to set me straight, which is strange, considering… you.”

 

“You good then? You’re not gonna sock me in the face?”

 

“Not this time, I don’t think.”

 

“Well great. Can we put this to bed?”

 

Tobias shrugs. He’s not sure; he’s not sure he wants to commit to his own defeat. He finally says, “I guess I’ll have to defer to your reason. You are always so good with Emily.”

 

“Why does this feel like a bizarre sort of marriage?” Gibbs jokes as he gestures between the two of them.

 

Tobias smirks. “Because it is.”

 

“Without the obvious perks.” Gibbs tosses a stick at the fire; it catches fire in a bright flare before calming down into an orange glow as it burns. He thinks about the two packs of marshmallows he bought. (He thinks about Tony, who’s not here with him. It’s a dull, muted feeling: missing somebody you’d rather not miss.) 

 

Tobias looks at him with his eyebrows raised.

 

“You don’t fix things around the house.” Gibbs jerks his head in the direction of the cabin. (Neither does Tony, fix anything — other than dinner.)

 

This time, Tobias fully grasps the dry humor. He chuckles and reaches out. His depth perception is a bit off due to the alcohol, but he gives Gibbs’ leg a friendly pat. “Don’t you worry. I don’t think I’ve got it in me.”

 

“What’s that?”

 

“To join the ranks of the ex-wives.” 

 

“Who says we’d get a divorce?” Gibbs asks, playing along. 

 

“C’mon, Jethro.”

 

“No. You’re right. Emily feels enough like a daughter to me. No marriage needed.”

 

“And you’re right, Jethro. You’re always right.” He then nods to emphasize the point; it’s jerky and over-animated. “Emily isn’t a little girl anymore. She’s a woman, an adult. And she’s getting married. And she’s got a job — not just a job, a start to a career. And she’s moving nearly 3,000 miles away. But that’s okay. It’ll have to be okay.”

 

Silence.

 

“Won’t it?”

 

“Yeah.” Gibbs throws another stick at the fire. “It will.”

 

 

**

 

 

The morning is thick and sticky. The air seems to cling to everything: the trees and grass outside, the sleeping bags inside, the can of unheated baked beans Tobias is ploughing through, their bodies.

 

As far as hangovers go, this one is mild. The pounding keeps itself to a dull roar and the dry mouth is easily solved by the rapid chugging of one and a half bottles of water. He brushes his teeth with the remaining half. He spends the morning chewing baked beans slowly and looking out over the lake. Two ducks cut through the water, about a dozen ducklings trailing behind.

 

Gibbs, in his infinite resourcefulness and constant effort to improve the place, has rigged an outdoor shower that draws water from the lake. He’s out there now, enjoying the fruits of his labor in the form of a cold lake water shower. He’ll force Tobias to give it a try, and Tobias assumes it’ll be better than sitting around marinating in day-old sweat and smelling like an ill-kept distillery.

 

“So what’s on the agenda today?” he asks as Gibbs comes back inside, fully clothed and snapping a watch back around his wrist.

 

“You’ll take a shower,” says Gibbs. “Then we’ll hike to the top of the mountain.”

 

“A hike? Should we throw in some trust exercises, too? The trust fall maybe?”

 

As Gibbs moves around the small cabin, moving things around, putting things away, he answers, “I hope you enjoy experiencing the earth’s gravitational pull.”

 

“He made a bad joke!” Tobias puts the bean can down with a _plonk_.

 

Gibbs says, “Hurry up, will you? It’ll only get hotter. It’s about four miles, uphill.”

 

“Can’t we choose something a bit less strenuous? Something like, I don’t know,” he shrugs as he jokes, “making out?”

 

“My make out sessions are just about as strenuous as hiking uphill for four miles,” Gibbs deadpans.

 

Tobias stares at him. He’s incredulous. “So it’s an even match then? A four-mile uphill hike versus a make out session with you?”

 

“Sure.” Gibbs throws him a silly floppy hat and heads outside. 

 

 

**

 

 

Tobias lands heavily on the ground with a loud thump that dislodges a nearby mourning dove in a frenzy of flapping wings and distressed coos. Panting hard and sweating, he stretches out in the grass and says, “I’m too old for this shit.”

 

Gibbs sits nearby. He’s quiet, barely winded. He looks at the sky, distracted only by his thoughts.

 

The view from here stretches on for miles, despite the haze. The forest spreads out below, the terrain undulating until it levels out in a green valley split in two by the creek. The breeze picks up, mercifully, and dries the sweat from their skin.

 

Still breathing hard, Tobias turns his head and squints into the sun toward where he thinks Gibbs might be. “If that’s—“ breath “—equivalent to making—“ breath “—out with you—“ breath “—then damnit—“ breath. 

 

“Take it easy, Tobias,” says Gibbs.

 

When his breathing finally evens out, Tobias finishes, “—I feel like we just made out. Like I need to make you a mix tape.”

 

“Please, don’t.”

 

“You’re right.” Tobias blinks at the sky. “That sounds dated. I think it’s all about the Spotify playlists these days. Or iTunes, maybe. I don’t even know anymore. How do you feel about Lady Gaga?”

 

Gibbs tosses his flip phone at him, and it lands somewhere near his head. “Call your daughter.”

 

Tobias dodges away and rolls himself into some sort of a sitting position. He picks up the phone, confused, and gives Gibbs a look. “No reception I thought.”

 

“High enough up here,” says Gibbs. “There’s a tower down on the other side of the mountain.”

 

“Huh.” Tobias looks at the phone. “Now I see.”

 

“Well go on. Apologize. Tell her you’ll be at that wedding, and that you’ll support her — no matter what.”

 

Slowly, Tobias picks up the phone and flips it open with a grimace. He studies the screen, tiny and pixellated. “You know, Jethro, there’s something called a smartphone—“

 

“Call her.”

 

 

**

 

 

On the way back down the mountain, the trail meandering this way and that, Gibbs tells his friend, with uncharacteristic sentiment, “I’m proud of you, Tobias.”

 

Gibbs is leading the way, footsteps sure and even, and Tobias is bringing up the rear, picking his way delicately over the exposed tree roots and downed logs. He stares at Gibbs’ back. “I’m not sure if this is some sort of compliment. I was there when you said something similar to Jimmy Palmer.”

 

“Oh yeah?” Gibbs’ seems curious.

 

“My memory is foggy, but it was something like ‘I’m proud of you,’ but then you ended it with, ‘and I don’t even like you that much.’ So… excuse me for being wary.”

 

Now Gibbs is laughing, and the sound is genuine and free from any inhibition. “You’re lucky then,” he says. “I like you well enough.”

 

“Relieved.”

 

They hike in comfortable silence for several minutes. They both work up a sweat, but the return trip downhill is much easier than the trek uphill.

 

“So who did you call from up there?” Tobias asks. After calling Emily, he’d handed the phone back to Gibbs, who told him he’d be a minute and who then disappeared for several.

 

Gibbs doesn’t answer.

 

“I’m prying, I know, but I think—“ says Tobias.

 

Gibbs decides to interrupt. “I needed to apologize to someone as well.”

 

“Tony then.” Tobias always makes sure to skate delicately around that relationship. It’s something foreign and unfamiliar to him. He doesn’t know how it started, nor does he want to, nor does he know what keeps it going. It’s something private, but he’s seen the way one looks at the other, so it’s something special, if unorthodox and mildly out-of-character for both of them.

 

Gibbs chooses not to confirm.

 

“Maybe,” Tobias suggests, “he was never planning on coming up here for the weekend with you. You came up on your own, to get away from him and so he could have some time away from you. But, maybe, you hoped—“

 

“I can’t hope for anything,” Gibbs says quickly. “Not with him. He doesn’t like expectations.” It’s a candid revelation from such a private individual. “Neither do I.”

 

“You apologized.”

 

“I did.”

 

Silence. Nothing but their foot steps, the _shush shush_ of boots on decaying leaf litter; the wind rushing through the leaves overhead; the cry of a hawk — distant, free; katydids buzzing together from the trees and thick underbrush.

 

“So that means something, right?” Tobias presses.

 

Gibbs suddenly stops in his tracks, and Tobias nearly runs into his back. 

 

“It means I’m wrong sometimes,” says Gibbs as he turns to look at Tobias. “I think it’s a rule, even.”

 

The moment is awkward. Gibbs’ face is asking him to drop the subject; Tobias feels morally obliged to do so. “Gotcha,” he says — polite, succinct.

 

Gibbs turns back around and continues down the trail. “I stood in a grocery aisle for five whole minutes debating which size marshmallow to buy.” Gibbs’ non-sequitur hangs in the air between them. It melts into the heat and refuses to budge.

 

“How’d that end?” Tobias has to ask.

 

“I bought one of each.”

 

 

—

 

 

There’s no such thing as true love or soul mates, and both Tobias and Gibbs are old enough — experienced enough — to know that. There are strangers and co-workers and best friends and girlfriends, boyfriends. All of them just people; none of them ever intended for the other. That’s how things work, in reality. 

 

Gibbs considers it good enough to finally find somebody who’s willing to stick around and experience companionship in (almost) the exact same way he wants it. It’s _good enough,_ he reasserts, that he found that _somebody_. So he should really stop pissing that somebody off.

 

“Something tells me,” Tobias is saying, speculative and bold, “you were in need of this intervention as much as I was.”

 

It’s early morning, birdsong thick in the air, and Tobias is seated on the front steps with black coffee in hand while Gibbs splits wood. The activity is fraught with violence.

 

“More, maybe,” deadpans Tobias.

 

“What makes you say that?” Gibbs asks. _Thwap!_ The thick piece of wood cleaves into two. Gibbs grabs the bigger of the pieces, sets it up, and aims the axe at it. _Thwap!_

 

“I know passive-aggressive wood-chopping when I see it.”

 

Gibbs rewards Tobias with silence. He leans the axe against the huge stump, then begins stacking the split wood with the precision of the truly anal-retentive. 

 

“Great stacking method,” Tobias observes. “No gaps.”

 

Gibbs says, suddenly: “He never answered the phone.” 

 

“Huh?”

 

“Yesterday. I had to leave him a voicemail.”

 

“Doesn’t sound like DiNozzo,” says Tobias. “Always at your beck and call, isn’t he?”

 

Gibbs gives him a look that could wilt the most stubborn of weeds.

 

“Just saying.” Tobias sips his coffee — cool, calm, collected. “You might want to expedite your reconciliation attempts, though. I don’t know what happened, but sounds like you pissed him off.”

 

“He’s got every right to be — but with Tony, it’s more bark than bite.”

 

“Everybody says that before they get mauled.”

 

Gibbs takes a handkerchief from the back pocket of his jeans and wipes his brow. After a bit of uncomfortable silence, he says, “Ready for another hike up the mountain?”

 

“Or—“ Tobias doesn’t look ready at all, “—you could drive back to civilization and apologize in-person like a normal human being.” 

 

There’s a pause, as if Gibbs is considering something. “What am I gonna do with all those damn marshmallows?”

 

 

**

 

 

Tony holds the invitation up into the firelight so he can properly see it. His eyes check the date — not for at least two months. It’s printed on fancy paper — overly formal in the way of most wedding invites. “Hm, lookit that,” he says.

 

Gibbs is on the sofa while Tony’s sitting on the floor, taking a break from his marshmallow-roasting binge. “What?” asks Gibbs, glancing up from his paperback, reading glasses perched on his nose.

 

“Emily,” says Tony. “All grown up.”

 

Gibbs answers casually, “It would seem so.”

 

“First wedding we’re invited to. As a couple,” Tony remarks. He tilts his head and looks up toward Gibbs. The light from the fire plays on his face and makes shadows there. He looks older than Gibbs remembered him looking just weeks ago; something about that makes Gibbs’ more fond of the person Tony’s become.

 

 _As a couple_ , Gibbs repeats inwardly to himself. He remains unmoved, even while his gut starts spinning a bit. Something about this is important; this is the part he can’t fuck up. _Don’t fuck it up, Gunny._ “So,” Gibbs says, tone casual and conversational, “are you free that weekend?”

 

Silence. And then, finally: “You’re the weirdest person I’ve ever dated,” says Tony, “and I’ve dated a lot of people.”

 

It’s not exactly the response Gibbs expected.

 

But Tony is already adding: “Of course I’ll be free that weekend.”

 

The fire crackles. Gibbs is forgetting something, he knows. “Am I forgiven?” he asks.

 

“The marshmallows were a start,” says Tony with a smile, small and private.

 

 

**

 

 

_Several weeks later…_

 

 

“This hike doesn’t get any easier does it,” Tobias Fornell — now a freshly-minted father-in-law — comments in slight awe. 

 

He’s lying in a heap on the grass. He stares up at the pale blue sky. There are no clouds today, just the wispy trails left by jet airliners. While Tobias is usually never so whimsical nor creative, he briefly wonders where each might’ve been headed. His breaths come heavy as his heart thumps.

 

And suddenly, unexpectedly, he misses her: the mother of his daughter, the woman who let him get away with nothing and held him accountable for everything, his partner. The feeling is intense and it makes him ache in a way he’ll never get used to.

 

“Nope,” says Gibbs, sitting nearby and staring — as he usually does post-hike — out at the view of the valley below. His fingers play with a stick, and then they snap it in two. 

 

Autumn is coming. They can feel it in the mornings — the sharp chill, the promise of another winter, cold and gray. Tobias knows he’ll have to endure it alone. That’s why he came up here to the cabin, again, and that’s why Gibbs showed up here to meet him, again.

 

Emily’s absence is conspicuous, and although there are plenty of visits, they never seem to be enough.

 


End file.
